The department of Vehicle Systems and Technology Assessment identifies, analyses, and motivates future vehicle concepts for road and rail traffic from the perspective of engineering, commerce, society, and environment. Technology assessment is aligned quantitatively, prospectively, and systematically in order to enable assessment of novel vehicle technologies with respect to the criteria of energy, emissions, costs, and utilities in the context of society. Changing parameters and requirements are being continually identified and reflected back on, or projected into the design of future vehicle concepts.

Innovative vehicle energy architectures are investigated and developed in the department of Vehicle Energy Concepts. Employees render research and development services in demand at the national and international level for optimising the energy needs of future vehicle concepts for road and rail. Besides mid-sized companies from the surrounding region, automobile and rail vehicle manufacturers as well as their subcontractors are industrial partners.

The challenges of mastering low-emission, efficient, affordable, resource- and climate-sparing mobility of the day after tomorrow and equipping the future with it is the department of Alternative Energy Converters' vision. Currently the optimisation of chemical-to-electrical energy conversion (serial hybrids/range extenders), secondary energy utilisation (thermal electricity), and bi-directional transformation of electrical into mechanical energy (electrical drives) is being researched for this.

Light, safe, low-resource vehicle structures for the generation after next: The research field of lightweight and hybrid design methods networks conceptualisation, design, and simulation capabilities with the possibilities of representation, testing, and vehicle integration of demonstrators. It maps the entire (pre-)development chain from the first conceptualisation to design, through calculation and simulation, to prototype representation and its physical test.